Perennial Republican legislative candidate Chad Magendanz admits to voting for Donald Trump in 2024

One of two legislative candidates that Washington State Republicans are desperately hoping can flip a state Senate seat for them this month turned a lot of heads late last month when he admitted in a Seattle Times article to voting for Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election, after having spent months trying to dismiss the charge that he is an enabler of the fascism and extremism currently enveloping our country.

In the pantheon of local October surprises that have been served up by the candidates themselves, rather than another entity, this admission has to rank pretty high.

Chad Magendanz, fifty-eight, was once a state representative in the 5th Legislative District, a mostly exurban district was once solidly Republican but is now reliably Democratic. He decided to challenge Democrat Mark Mullet in 2016 when Mullet was running for a second term, but came up short. Ever since, he’s been trying to get back into the Legislature, except for a brief spell when he was running for Superintendent of Public Instruction. Including his short-lived OSPI bid, Magendanz has run five times since 2014 for office and lost. That’s over a decade of losing. And based on what Magendanz said to Seattle Times Jim Brunner, it seems like he’s setting himself up to lose once again:

“The ‘orange man bad’ strategy has been very effective against Republicans,” Magendanz acknowledged, referring to Democrats making all elections about Trump.